"Must you?" says she, quiet.
"I can"t take it out in wearin" a b.u.t.ton or hirin" someone to hoe potatoes in the back lot," says I.
"No," says she.
"Auntie would come, I suppose?" says I.
Vee nods.
"And with Leon here," I goes on, "and Mrs. Battou, you could----"
"Yes, I could get along," she breaks in. "But--but when?"
"Right away," says I. "As soon as they can use me."
"You"ll start training for a commission, then?" she asks.
"Not me," says I. "I"d be poor enough as a private, but maybe I"d help fill in one of the back rows. I don"t know much about it. I"ll look it up to-morrow."
"To-morrow? Oh!" says Vee, with just the suspicion of a break in her voice.
And that"s all we had to say about it. Every word. You"d thought we"d exhausted the subject, or got the tongue cramp. But I expect we each had a lot of thoughts that didn"t get registered. I know I did. And next mornin" the breakaway came sort of hard.
"I--I know just how you feel about it," says Vee.
"I"m glad somebody does, then," says I.
Puttin" the proposition up to Old Hickory was different. He shoots a quick glance at me from under them s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, bites into his cigar savage, and grunts discontented.
"You are exempt, you know," says he.
"I know," says I. "If tags came with marriage licenses I might wear one on my watch-fob to show, I expect."
"Huh!" says he. "It seems to me that rapid-fire brain of yours might be better utilized than by hiding it under a trench helmet."
"Speedy thinkers seem to be a drug on the market just now," says I.
"Anyway, I feel like it was up to me to deliver something--I can"t say just what. But campin" behind a roll-top here on the nineteenth floor ain"t going to help much, is it?"
"Oh, well, if you have the fever!" says he.
And half an hour later I"ve pushed in past the flag and am answerin"
questions while the sergeant fills out the blank.
Maybe you can guess I ain"t in any frivolous mood. I don"t believe I thought I was about to push back the invader, or turn the tide for civilization. Neither was I lookin" on this as a sportin" flier or a larky excursion that I was goin" to indulge in at public expense. My idea was that there"d been a general call for such as me, and that I was comin" across. I was more or less sober about it.
They didn"t seem much impressed at the recruitin" station. Course, you couldn"t expect the sergeant to get thrilled over every party that drifted in. He"d been there for weeks, I suppose, answerin" the same fool questions over and over, knowin" all the time that half of them that came in was bluffin" and that a big per cent. of the others wouldn"t do.
But this other party with the zippy waistline, the swellin" chest, and the nifty shoulder-straps--why should he glare at me in that cold, suspicious way? I wasn"t tryin" to break into the army with felonious intent. How could he be sure, just from a casual glance, that I was such vicious sc.u.m?
Oh, yes; I"ve figured out since that he didn"t mean more"n half of it, or couldn"t help lookin" at civilians that way after four years at West Point, or thought he had to. But that"s what I get handed to me when I"ve dropped all the little things that seemed important to me and walks in to chuck what I had to offer Uncle Sam on the recruitin" table.
Some kind of inspectin" officer, I"ve found out he was, makin" the rounds to see that the sergeants didn"t loaf on the job. And, just to show that no young patriot in a last year"s Panama and a sport-cut suit could slip anything over on him, he shoots in a few crisp questions on his own account.
"Married, you say?" says he. "Since when?"
"Oh, this century," says I. "Last February, to get it nearer."
He sniffs disagreeable without sayin" why. Also he takes a hand when it comes to testin" me to see whether I"m club-footed or spavined. Course, I"m no perfect male like you see in the knit underwear ads, but I"ve got the usual number of toes and teeth, my wind is fairly good, and I don"t expect my arteries have begun to harden yet. He listens to my heart action and measures my chest expansion. Then I had to name the different colors and squint through a tube at some black dots on a card.
And the further we went the more he scowled. Finally he shakes his head at the sergeant.
"Rejected," says he.
"Eh?" says I. "You--you don"t mean I"m--turned down?"
He nods. "Underweight, and your eyes don"t focus," says he snappy.
"Here"s your card. That"s all."
Yes, it was a jolt. I expect I stood there blinkin" stupid at him for a minute or so before I had sense enough to drift out on the sidewalk. And I might as well admit I was feelin" mighty low. I didn"t know whether to hunt up the nearest hospital, or sit down on the curb and wait until they came after me with the stretcher-cart. Anyway, I knew I must be a physical wreck. And to think I hadn"t suspected it before!
Somehow I dragged back to the office, and a while later Mr. Ellins discovers me slumped in my chair with my chin down.
"Mars and Mercury!" says he. "You haven"t been through a battle so soon, have you?"
At that, I tries to brace up a bit and pa.s.s it off light.
"Why didn"t someone tell me I was a chronic invalid?" says I, after sketchin" out how my entry had been scratched by the chesty one. "I wonder where I could get a pair of crutches and a light-runnin" wheel chair?"
"Bah!" says he. "Some of those army officers have red-tape brains and no more common sense than he guinea-pigs. What in the name of the Seven Shahs did he think was the matter with you?"
"My eyes don"t track and I weigh under the scale," says I. "I expect there"s other things, too. Maybe my floatin" ribs are water-logged and my memory muscle-bound. But I"m a wreck, all right."
"We"ll see about that," says Old Hickory, pushin" a buzzer.
And inside of an hour I felt a lot better. I"d been gone over by a life insurance expert, who said I hadn"t a soft spot on me, and an eye specialist had reported that my sight was up to the average. Oh, the right lamp did range a little further, but he claims that"s often the case.
"Maybe my hair was too vivid for trench work," says I, "or else that captain was luggin" a grouch. Makes me feel like a wooden nickel at the bottom of the till, just the same; for I did hope I might be useful somehow. I"ll look swell joinin" the home guards, won"t I?"
"Don"t overlook the fact, young man," puts in Old Hickory, "that the Corrugated Trust is not altogether out of this affair, and that we are running short-handed as it is."
I was too sore in my mind to be soothed much by that thought just then, though I did buckle into the work harder than ever.
As for Vee, she don"t have much to say, but she gives me the close tackle when she hears the news.
"I don"t care!" says she. "It was splendid of you to want to go. And I shall be just as proud of you as though you had been accepted."
"Oh, sure!" says I. "Likely I"ll be mentioned in despatches for the n.o.ble way I handled the correspondence all through a hot spell."
That state of mind I didn"t shake loose in a hurry, either. For three or four weeks, there, I was about the meekest commuter carried on the eight-three. I didn"t do any gloatin" over the war news. I didn"t join any of the volunteer boards of strategy that met every mornin" to tell each other how the subs ought to be suppressed, or what Haig should be doin" on the West front. I even stopped wearin" an enameled flag in my b.u.t.tonhole. If that was all I could do, I wouldn"t fourflush.